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Monday, October 24, 2005

David Cameron and former CIA director James Wolsey

'the list of Henry Jackson patrons 'reads like a Who's Who of US foreign-policy hawks: including the former CIA director James Wolsey.'

In The Guardian, 24 October 2005, Nil Clark reminds us that David Cameron has neocon associations. The Guardian

1. David Cameron favours flat-rate tax, 'a far-right wheeze that would leave, according to a Treasury report, up to 30 million Britons worse off and the super-rich even richer'.

2. Cameron talks of "fighting to end the EU's damaging social role".

3. Cameron 'is an unreconstructed hawk, his campaign masterminded by the neoconservative trio of Tory MPs Osborne, Michael Gove and Ed Vaizey, all enthusiastic cheerleaders for Pax Americana. Osborne hailed the "excellent neoconservative case" for action against Iraq in 2003 and denies that the invasion has radicalised Muslim opinion.'

Gove and Vaizey are signatories to the statement of principles of the Henry Jackson Society, which has its UK launch next month.

The society is named after the US Democratic senator who opposed detente with the Soviet Union.

The society calls for the "maintenance of a strong military with a global expeditionary reach".

Clark reports that 'the list of Henry Jackson patrons 'reads like a Who's Who of US foreign-policy hawks: including the former CIA director James Wolsey, William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, and Richard Perle, former chairman of the Defence Policy Board and the man many see as the architect of the Iraq war'.

Cameron voted for the Iraq war.

According to Clark:

'Like all good neocons Cameron blamed the conflict on the French and their promise to veto any second UN security council resolution.'

"The central job of a new Tory leader is to put the Conservative argument in a different way ... " - these are the views of the Tories' modernising guru Daniel Finkelstein.

For him, 'the fact that Cameron looks moderate is all that matters'.

Clark writes: 'But those not enamoured by the prospect of a regressive tax system, a revival of 1980s economics, a hostile attitude to Europe or British participation in military invasions of Iran, Syria or any other country the US decides to attack in five or six years' time are well advised to read the small print'.